Cape Coast adventure!

happy new year! Sorry that I have not written anything in a couple of days.  The last few days and nights have been quite long.  New years is great...except when it falls on a Saturday.  Sunday is our early morning on the ship for the galley crew.  We get up early and make a hot breakfast for everyone.  So we were up very late on Saturday night at an all crew celebration of the new year.  First we had a prayer time in the international lounge.  At midnight we all went to midships where we drank bubbling grape juice and had snacks.  It was pretty fun but i didn't get to bed till pretty late.  And 6 AM comes pretty darn early.
Today Julie, Rachel and I went to Cape Coast.  It's a cute little town that's about 2.5 hour drive from Accra.  We got up really early to catch a train, but unfortunately it's a holiday today (for what i have no idea) and the trains were not running.

I took this picture of the sun rise because i figured i was up that early and probably (hopefully) would not be up that early again.

 We went to a national park and did the canopy walk.  It's call a canopy walk because you are walking on rope bridges that are suspended at the canopy level of the rain forest.

We were in a group of about 150 people (it was weird to have so many tourists...not used to that at all!)

Getting ready to start walking on the bridges. Mom, you woulda HATED this! i loved it :)  The guide spaced us out in groups of 4-6 to evenly distribute weight

pictures never do scenery justice.  The landscape was so gorgeous!

After the Canopy walk we went to a little town called Elmina. We saw a castle there. It wasn't an ordinary castle.  It was a castle where slaves were kept before being transported to different countries.  In a way it was interesting to see.  I think it's good that we keep the mistakes of our past fresh in our minds to not make those same mistakes.  But, it was also depressing because slavery still exists today.  We don't build castles and auction slaves off...but it exists in more concealed and sneaky forms. Human trafficking. Coincidentally i happen to be reading a novel about human trafficking and the lack of media and community involvement to stop this atrocity.  I would like to educate myself more about human trafficking and how to stop or get involved in stopping it.  It is slavery people! Many people have lost their lives fighting to end slavery, and yet it still exists and we do NOTHING to stop it!  All that to say...we went to a castle today.

View of the castle in the distance.  

There will be more pictures put up soon.  You had to pay to use a camera so we only had one person in our group take pictures.  I have to get the pictures from her...hopefully tomorrow.
It's been a long day.  I'm exhausted.  I didn't even get to tell you about the tro tro ride home, or the horrid taxi drivers who see a white girl and try to rip her off.  just because she's white doesn't mean she's stupid!!! anyway...that's a story for a different night.